Feb 24, 2009

AN EFFECTIVE GUARANTY AGAINST UNREASONABLE GOVERNMENT

It's time to post one of my all-time favourite statements from the Bench. I originally put it up in August 2006 and again in August 2007.

I'm a little overdue in reminding myself why I got involved in this 'pit bull' thing in the first place. In my view, it has little to do with dogs or 'pit bulls' and a lot to do with treating people equally under the law.

If only the dogsbite nutters and other low-information flying monkeys could stop repeating canned nonsense and take a good, long look at what's really going on, things would be a lot better for everybody.

Enjoy.

"I regard it as a salutary doctrine that cities, states and the Federal Government must exercise their powers so as not to discriminate between their inhabitants except upon some reasonable differentiation fairly related to the object of regulation. This equality is not merely abstract justice. The framers of the Constitution knew, and we should not forget today, that there is no more effective practical guaranty against arbitrary and unreasonable government than to require that the principles of law which officials would impose upon a minority must be imposed generally. Conversely, nothing opens the door to arbitrary action so effectively as to allow those officials to pick and choose only a few to whom they will apply legislation and thus to escape the political retribution that might be visited upon them if larger numbers were affected. Courts can take no better measure to assure that laws will be just than to require that laws be equal in operation."